Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
640-659)
MR NICK
GILL, MR
NICK CONSTANTINOU
AND MS
ROBERTA FUKE
9 JULY 2009
Q640 Dr Taylor: So 275mls is 1.2
units?
Mr Gill: Yes.
Q641 Dr Taylor: It comes in 275ml
bottles?
Mr Gill: A 275ml and also a 70cl
screw-top bottle.
Q642 Dr Taylor: You have got on your
desk Appendices for Briefing Session?
Mr Gill: Yes.
Q643 Dr Taylor: If you turn to page
two, this is the Kev and Dave page that you have recently launched.
Mr Gill: Yes.
Q644 Dr Taylor: So this is available
to anybody who goes on to the WKD site who is, allegedly, over
the age of 18?
Mr Gill: Yes, to access WKD content
you have to be over 18.
Q645 Dr Taylor: How is this operated?
How is it updated?
Mr Gill: It is updated on a very
frequent basis. The main campaign that you see in the middle there
of the two characters, Kev and Dave, is something that we will
be running for the duration of this year. That is our major digital
engagement campaign that Nick was talking about earlier in terms
of engaging our consumers. The news letter is updated on a monthly
basis, which is both posted on the site and sent to opt-in consumers,
all of whom, obviously, are over 18 as well. The blog is updated
on a frequent basis, dependent on content that we have available
and, something we may want to comment on, it is also housed only
in our site. We do not use any blog platforms outside of WKD,
because we, again, cannot control under 18s accessing that content
in an environment that we do not control. The events are also
updated as and when an event may happen. It is updated by a CMS
system (Content Management System), which both we as the agency
and the clients have access to, so we can update the content fairly
rapidly and at low-cost for them.
Q646 Dr Taylor: So somebody who has
seen this can then write in to Kev and Dave?
Mr Gill: The "Ask anything"
is a one-way platform. So you ask a question and it identifies
the key words within your question, using some technology at the
back end, and then serves a video response, and we have recorded
over 200 individual video responses that have a humorous, light-hearted
tone to them and they give you answers to what you are actually
asking for them.
Q647 Dr Taylor: Do you have any control
over what gets out that is visible?
Mr Gill: Yes, we do. We only have
content here. We also have a Facebook page for Kev and Dave which
is restricted to only when they accept friends that have to be
over 18 as well. That is the content that we have externally.
We do not, for example, use Twitter externally to our site because,
whereas with Facebook you can guarantee our friends are over 18,
on Twitter you cannot. So whilst a lot of our audience is very
much in that space, we have actively refrained from that because
we cannot guarantee with the Portman Group guidelines that that
would not be targeting or communicating with people who are under
18, so we actively do not go into Twitter.
Q648 Dr Taylor: So Facebook is safer
then Twitter and Bebo?
Mr Gill: Bebo has an over proportion
of under-18s, so we do not do any activity within Bebo. Facebook
you can target, from an advertising perspective, those who are
over 18. That is a service that Facebook provides. So you can
target people absolutely in the demographic that you want to,
so you can have zero exposure to those who are under 18, and the
Facebook page that we have for Kev and Dave has a very limited
profile until you actually become a friend, when you can then
see the deeper level content. Again, the intent of that is to
highlight the Kev and Dave campaign that we push people back to
our main website at WKD.co.uk.
Q649 Dr Taylor: So the comments that
come through to this you vet to make sure that they are okay.
Mr Gill: Yes, we only have very
few comments on there. User-generated content has been growing
phenomenally in the last couple of years: hence why there is a
lot of conversation and media talk about Facebook, and particularly
Twitter of late with the Iran elections, and things like that.
We have a very small part on our site that has consumer entries
only in text form, and they are very heavily vetted by our client
teams. So if you went to the event section, there is some message-board
feedback there and there are approximately eight to 10 messages
on there from consumers, and we only ever approve those ones that
are socially responsible.
Q650 Dr Taylor: What do you get when
you open the WKD shop?
Mr Gill: You get to see a number
of merchandise elements, that are WKD branded, that you can purchase.
Q651 Dr Taylor: And the credit crunch
coupon?
Mr Gill: The coupon is a downloadable
coupon that gives you money-off a purchase of WKD.
Q652 Dr Taylor: A money-off coupon
in any supermarket?
Mr Gill: I believe so, yes.
Q653 Dr Taylor: So you are happy
that under age people do not get easy access to this.
Mr Gill: We actively discourage
them from entering the site, yes.
Q654 Dr Taylor: How can you be sure
that Facebook is secure from under age people?
Mr Gill: Because to get a Facebook
account you need to register your date of birth, which the vast
majority of people do openly and honestly because it is a social
network. The intent of it is actually that you network with your
friends in the online environment; so to lie about your age does
not make sense in that environment.
Q655 Dr Taylor: I am sorry to be
dense, but does that mean a 16-year-old should not be on Facebook?
Mr Gill: Most 16-year-olds can
be on Facebook. Anybody of absolutely any age can be on Facebook.
The biggest growing demographic of people on Facebook is those
aged 40-plus.
Q656 Dr Taylor: You have lost me.
Why is Facebook safer than Twitter from your point of view?
Mr Gill: Because we know, from
the registration data of Facebook, that they allow us to access.
From the media perspective we can target exclusively those who
are 18-plus, and from our Facebook fan page we will only accept
friends who are 18-plus. If they do not have their date of birth
entered or it is not in their public profile, we do not accept
them as a friend.
Q657 Dr Taylor: So you are absolutely
happy that nobody under the age of 18 could access this particular
field that we have put on page two?
Mr Gill: This is our brand site,
WKD.co.uk. Again, that comes back to the age verification page
upfront. The Facebook page, again, we actively discourage people.
Q658 Dr Stoate: Can I interrupt there?
I have just entered the WKD site with a fake date of birth, 29
February, on a year that was not a leap year, and I am into it
without any trouble at all. Admittedly it is a bit slow, because
3G is not working very well in this room, but I am onto the website
with no trouble, and it did not ask me any other details. A fictitious
date of birth which did not actually exist and I am on your website
no trouble at all. I can go onto all these things: the shop, the
arcade, download Kev and Dave, the newsletter. It is not a problem.
It did not give me much confidence, and if I had actually been
only 12, I would have had no trouble at all getting onto this:
it took me a minute.
Mr Gill: Yes, but the age verification
process is the accepted standard in the industry.
Q659 Dr Stoate: It is not very effective
then, is it? I asked you if it was too lax. I do not think that
is very effective.
Mr Gill: If there was a more effective
way of doing it, then we as an industry, and not just the alcohol
industry, would be employing that. At the moment that is collectively
what we believe is the most effective method of doing it.
Dr Stoate: I am not impressed, Chairman.
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